A large and growing population of users employs various electronic devices to perform functions, such as placing telephone calls (voice and/or video), sending and receiving email, text messaging, accessing the internet, playing games, consuming digital content (e.g., music, movies, images, electronic books, etc.), and so on. Among these electronic devices are electronic book (eBook) reader devices, mobile telephones, desktop computers, portable media players, tablet computers, netbooks, and the like.
Many of these electronic devices include touch screens to allow users to interact with the electronic devices using touch inputs. While touch input is an effective way of interfacing with electronic devices in some instances, in many instances touch inputs are problematic. For example, it may be difficult to use touch inputs when using a device one handed. As another example, when interacting with a device using touch input, a user's finger or stylus typically obscures at least a portion of the screen.
Additionally, many existing electronic device interfaces are cumbersome and/or unintuitive to use. User interface controls used to perform various functions are often esoteric and unintuitive to users. For example, UI Pickers are elements of user interfaced used for picking from the end user a value with well-defined type and range. These pickers are often part of a mobile UI that requires an input from the user. One example of such a picker is a number picker which evolved from a simple text field with numerical validation into a virtual spinner. This virtual spinner requires interaction with the user to bring up the interface and further interaction to correctly select the desired value.
While picking or sliding the control has become much simpler than typing in the value in a mobile device there is still no use of the newly emerging technology of 3D/Force touch screens. Thus, there remains a need for new interfaces for electronic devices and techniques for interacting with such interfaces and electronic devices.